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Comment by joshuaissac | Hacker News Reader

> They have no rights to prevent people modifying and using AGPL software however they want.

AGPL software can be used and modified within the limits of what the AGPL permits. People can do that with their Bambu software running on their own hardware.

That does not extend to using their proprietary BambuNetwork cloud service (somebody else's computer). The AGPL specifically mentions this scenario in section 6. There are open source alternatives to that like the third-party Bambu-Farm and bambuddy that people can self host instead.

Interestingly, Bambu's own initial approach to the AGPL was more in line with "modifying and using AGPL software however they want" (and potentially violating their section 6 obligations), until customer backlash forced them to adhere to the terms of the licence.

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Id Louis Rossman's YouTube rant is correct, nobody involved here modified the AGPLK software. They just used a version of the AGPL software from before Bambu Labs changed the auth code.

While I agree that the AGPL does not grant users any rights to Bambu's cloud service, sending DCMA nastygrams to people hosting copies on old versions of their software isn't the right (or even legal) way to enforce that. And since Bambu choose to build their products and software stack on pre existing AGPL code, they've backed themselves into a corner a bit with other options. They can add new auth to new versions of the code (which is stringer than just hardcoded useragent-like strings in the code) but they'll then have to release the source code to their new version - exactly like the original authors who chose the AGPL intended.

If I just build the software from their repo without any modifications, getting an identical result to what I can download via their website, would I be allowed to use the service? If not, why not? If yes, what if I made a modification? How much may I change and where was this ever codified? What about using an unmodified, prior version of the source code to build? Why would that not be ok?

Interesting question. In the first case, where you install your own build from unmodified source code, although AGPLv3.0 still allows discontinuing support, I see no explicit carve-out in the licence to restrict network access.

However, the AGPL comes with no right to such network access to begin with. Permission to access the network would usually come separately from the AGPL; I suppose you could potentially bundle it as an additional permission under section 7, but I don't think Bambu is doing that.

To take it a step further, even if you use the latest official software, installed by the vendor (and not by you), they can still refuse you access to their network. That might violate some other agreements or laws (e.g. contract to provide a service), but it does not violate the AGPL itself.

What they cannot do is prevent you from running your modifications on your hardware.

But they had no access control in the first place. If I built their repo without modifications, I automatically have access. I would need to make modifications not to get that access.

> [...] they can still refuse you access to their network.

Sure, they can and yes, AGPL doesn't give users right to just access services, I have said before that they may enforce their EULA upon individual users. They are however not doing that, they are harassing repo owners. Let me put it this way: If the network access were the issue, as you seem to think, why go after the dev hosting your code rather than the individual users that you claim improperly access your services.

> What they cannot do is prevent you from running your modifications on your hardware.

They also cannot prevent a developer from rehosting AGPL code, but they are trying to do that. And it's kind of the actual issue.

That's why I was asking specifically regarding what level of code modifications is acceptable for them. Because they made this an issue not about using their servers but hosting code, regardless of how it's used.

> They also cannot prevent a developer from rehosting AGPL code, but they are trying to do that. And it's kind of the actual issue.

I agree. I think the argument they are going for is similar to that from Google against yt-dl, but unlike in that case, Bambu is obligated to allow this codebase.

> That does not extend to using their proprietary BambuNetwork cloud service (somebody else's computer)

As I said, I believe people have a right to "adversarial interoperability", so I respectfully disagree

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